The nation’s largest beverage distributors agreed this week to drain sugary sodas from America’s schools. It’s an overdue but much welcome step in the fight against childhood obesity.
If school districts couldn’t pull the plug on their unhealthy relationships with soda companies, we’re pleased the companies have responded to the mounting public pressure.
The agreement, brokered in part by former President Bill Clinton (no stranger to junk food in his younger days), should reach an estimated 87 percent of the public and private school drink market. The titans, such as Coca-Cola Co., PepsiCo Inc., and Cadbury Schweppes PLC, and the American Beverage Association have signed on, and we urge the smaller companies to join the crowd.
In the 1990s, with their budgets wilting, more than a dozen Colorado districts signed lucrative contracts with Pepsi and Coca-Cola to sell soda in schools, along with water and juice. The pattern was repeated in other states. But with childhood obesity reaching epidemic proportions, there have been loud calls – from state legislatures and health groups – to dump the soft drinks.
Colorado lawmakers tried forcing the issue, but Gov. Bill Owens vetoed a bill earlier this year that would have required schools to stock at least half of each vending machine with healthy food. Owens cited local control as his reason for the veto.
The American Beverage Association, feeling the pressure, unveiled voluntary policies in 2005 that called for the removal of all soda from elementary schools and reduced sales in middle and high schools. Most elementary schools are now pop free.
Still, some 38 states considered bills in 2005 to tighten school nutrition. A dozen already had laws on the books.
“The soft drink industry has decided that it won’t wait to be pushed,” said Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, co-chair of the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, which helped broker the deal. “It jumped in.”
Under the agreement, only water, unsweetened juice and low-fat milk can be sold in elementary and middle schools. Regrettably, the deal allows for diet soft drinks to be sold at high schools. There’s no reason to continue peddling caffeine to young people in schools.
“It may be the soft drink industry, but they made a very hard decision,” Huckabee said.
It’s a good decision, one that will benefit children for years to come.
